Building a Global Community

About the program

The Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP) was a decade-long program that offered advanced study opportunities to more than 4,300 social justice leaders from the world’s most vulnerable populations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Russia.

Launched with a grant from the Ford Foundation in 2001, IFP was based on an inclusive higher education model that prioritized social commitment over traditional selection criteria. In addition to academic and leadership potential, candidates were selected from marginalized communities in twenty-countries that lack systematic access to higher education. These groups included women, indigenous people, and fellows from rural areas.

The majority of IFP alumni returned home after their fellowships, and report positive local impacts from their work. For these individuals, the IFP experience was not primarily a path to career enhancement; rather, it was the beginning of a new stage in their efforts to foster social change at local, national and regional levels.

The Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program was administered through IIE during its decade of operation. In July 2013, IIE began implementing a 10-year IFP Alumni Tracking Study, a rare opportunity to explore the personal and professional trajectories of IFP alumni with an emphasis on social justice impacts.